![]() Throughout most of the Age of Sail from the 17 th century to the mid-19 th century, technology, tactics, and life at sea had changed little. By 1944, more than 18,000 Marines had trained at Montford Point and 12,000 were stationed overseas.The naval war of World War I was a conflict unlike any previous one with the exception of the brief Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905). Despite the racism black Marines encountered, they distinguished themselves in the battles of Peleliu, Saipan, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. ![]() In North Carolina, a policeman slapped Edgar Cole‘s official orders out of his hand and told Cole that he was not allowed to wait on the street corner for a Marine driver to pick him up and take him to Montford Point. The police officers did not know African American Marines existed. Wood was even arrested for impersonating a Marine when he traveled home on leave to Cleveland, Ohio. The Marine Corps Commandant, Major General Thomas Holcomb, resented being forced to accept African Americans into the Corps, and unlike the Army, the Marine Corps did not permit any Black men to become officers until November 1945. Although the “Montford Point Marines” excelled at gunnery and drill, they too faced the same segregation and hostility as men and women in the other branches. ![]() These Marines trained at Montford Point, North Carolina. When the US Marine Corps began recruiting a contingent of black Marines in June 1942, men from across the country flocked to enlist. Various accounts relate how German prisoners of war could enter facilities reserved for white Americans that black servicemen could not patronize. ![]() This willingness on the part of African American soldiers to sacrifice their lives for a country that treated them as second-class citizens is remarkable. Soldiers of the 93rd Division advance through the jungle on Bougainville, May 1, 1944. ![]()
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